A lot of people brought to my attention that Google+ will be shutting down and that this resource had helped them install “all” types of smart doorbells. I was asked to repost it on this forum, so here it is.
Installing a Ring Pro directly to a transformer (without a chime)
I have been having a hard time getting these ring doorbells to work. I have other ring products and have never had an issue but the doorbells have truly been a headache. My situation is unique in that I have 4 doorbells. If you have only one or 2 then it’s pretty straight forward. I’ve had 3 electricians come out and work on the issues and it seemed to be fixed for a few days and then something happens and they either go offline and have to be restarted frequently, don’t come on, or short out the ring unit completely and brick it. There are no forums on the ring website to with user help. There are however help and support files that were not entirely helpful. They did provide cumulative help to the end goal of figuring out what the problem was.
Again, I want to reiterate that my problem was due to me having 4 doorbells. I’ve had ring doorbells at my previous residence and had no issues whatsoever.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an electrician.
Timeframe: I started this project on June 1st and finally solved it October 21st.
My issue started with a newly constructed home. I asked my builder to install 4 doorbells, the reason, because I wanted to cheaper security alternative to getting ADT, vivint, guardian, etc. So my idea was to put a doorbell on each entrance to cover 3 sides of my home. Front Door, Side door (off garage), Basement door (walkout), and deck door. When they installed it they put a 16 volt 10 VA transformer in, which was fine for the standard doorbell but wasn’t sufficient for the ring doorbells. I hadn’t known that at the time so I just went ahead purchased 4 doorbells and installed them. They worked for about 24 hours and then 2 went offline, so I just kept cutting the power on and off to reset it and sometimes only 1 went offline, sometimes 3. It would work when I reset it for a limited time, I believe, because it didn’t require enough power to exceed the transformer’s capacity. So anytime there was motion or someone rang the doorbell that would be what would cause the affected doorbell offline along with 1 or 2 more. So I got the first electrical company. I explained what I knew at the time to customer service they sent someone out. He put a 16V 24VA in and told me the doorbells needed more power. He was correct in that assumption but what he didn’t know was that it needed way more than what he put in. I ended up having similar issues but seemed a little better. 2nd electrical company came. I explained to them again what happened. This guy said the same thing about more power put in a 16V 30VA. Didn’t work. 3rd guy same thing, he told me that he put the most powerful doorbell transformer he carried in which was an edwards signaling 599 120v/24V 40W https://goo.gl/AKFdCL . Well it worked great. I had minimal disconnects but what happened was the transformer was extremely hot and when I checked on it there was some obvious melting of the chime box. With all three electricians I did use Ring’s Pro Power kit.
I was extremely tired of paying people to not fix it so I figured I could do a better job. I had the power of the internet with YouTube. So I started researching and it was frustrating that there wasn’t really much information on ring. There were forums on usenet, google groups, and other miscellaneous sites. I gathered from all those websites that I needed a separate transformer for each doorbell. So I purchased all the parts, knockout box, 3 more transformers, wire nuts, etc. I put together my own box. I wired it up, and viola it worked. I had about a week worth of absolutely no issue. Well all of a sudden two of the doorbells stopped working. Didn’t know why at the time but it was because to much power was going to the doorbell. According to Ring your doorbell should be between 3900mv - 4200mv. In the app I was getting above that and it was showing up in red (meaning that was bad) at around 4600+. I did some more research and a few people with the same issue as I (3 or more doorbells) kept mentioning using the pro power kit. That made no sense, the kit was to boost the power and I had more than enough. I finally found a site on Samsung’s Smartthings website (that was odd) https://goo.gl/ptZ4jp entitled, " Anyone install a Ring Pro directly to a transformer? ", it was very informative. What I found was that there are two separate kits. There is a Pro Power kit and a Pro Power cable. 2 different things. The kit is included with the Ring Doorbell and the cable you have to request. The kit boost power with a chime (digital or mechanical) attached and the cable boost power when wiring straight to a transformer without a chime (digital or mechanical). So I requested that pro power cable x 4 and wired them in as described here https://goo.gl/FNTdZE and everything worked like a charm for a while. There were periods of excess power but was lower than before. I went from above 4600 mv’s to 4300mv’s periodically. So I went ahead and ordered a resistor. This is the model resistor I purchased https://goo.gl/MYcHQC and I got that information straight from a ring support article here https://goo.gl/Tuq3pW . After I added the resistors all 4 doorbells have been working like a champ for the past month with no issues and with proper voltage. Here are some pictures of the original doorbell and the finished product. https://goo.gl/SwUSuQ
Other things to note:
I have a WiFi system. I originally had Eero, then Orbi, and now Google OnHub/WiFi. If you do not know what they are read this article https://goo.gl/7v3MwN and it’ll explain it all. I had issues with using the wifi systems and didn’t know why until I talked with a Ring costumer service rep named Sam who was very knowledgeable on the subject. When I called I was using the Orbi (because I got rid of the Eero because it wasn’t working with the ring doorbells. They didn’t connect, they did come up black when they did connect, and if I did get a picture 5 seconds later it would freeze). Same explained to me that ring at that time did not work with most WiFi systems because it recognized each node as a separate router. He explained to me that there would be a fix coming out with the November update that would fix this problem. He also recommended me get Google OnHub/WiFi because that’s the only mesh networking system that worked with the ring doorbell flawlessly. That’s what I purchased. My house is 6500 sq ft and there are a lot of dead spots so I have a combination of OnHub’s and WiFi units.
Article on traditional doorbell wiring with diagrams https://goo.gl/ryHL7v
Wiring a chime to Nest Hello https://goo.gl/efLcKi
